Irena is an artist working with a camera and a photography educator. Following a background in Medical Photography, a clinical approach to her subjects is reflected in the style of her work; whether it's a domestic space or an urban space. She came to photography as a second career following many years of extensive travelling with camera in hand.
My work explores the homogenisation of our modern cities. The Urban landscapes in this work springs from the areas between the buildings, exploring the street furniture. Stationary objects, practical objects, giving orders, instructions and lighting the way to all who happens to pass.
Amongst this functional furniture, trees are brought in to decorate the urban landscapes, to reside on the tarmac and paving stones that covers the soil of its origin. Solitary trees in the shadow of modern urban living, its function in life to garnish and decorate in a square metre of growing space, controlled and tamed.
These images document trees in the shadow of dominating street furniture, blending nature into its man made environment. The style is a straight-on view point, breaking rules of composition and landscape photography, placing the point of focus in the middle, sometimes cutting the image in half.
This work is an ongoing project, expanding into different cities and countries.
Other projects
Presenting a series of portraits of octogenarian sisters in Sardinia. One morning at breakfast the light was just right as they sat talking and I just had to capture them in full flow. They quickly forgot I was there, this allowed me to capture natural expressions and emotions. They spent their time reminiscing, remembering and relaying stories from their childhood.
One sister lives in Sardinia and one sister lives in the UK, the last of eight siblings. The family dispersed by war, meetings were infrequent. The last time they had seen each other was eighteen years ago.
They got together for one week in July 2013, maybe for the last time.
This work explores how we use objects and spaces to give definition to our lives, these spaces could be the home, the office, the car, the shed, to name a few. Spaces representing an aspect of ourselves, highlighting areas we would like to show and give attention. It's a human need to connect emotionally to a space.
'One of the basic human requirements is the need to dwell, and one of the central human acts is the act of inhabiting, of connecting ourselves, however temporarily, with a place on the planet which belongs to us and to which we belong.
Charles Moore, School of Architecture: Foreward. In Praise of Shadows. J.Tanizaki 2001 Vintage
New Work
After the Chemo
For as long a I remember my sister had a beautiful print by Giovanni Ambrogio de Predi, the painting is of a woman in profile. This was the inspiration for this portrait.
During my sister’s chemo treatment she wore a series of hats and combination of hats, which I felt took on the shape of a headdress worn by women in the era of the painting. Combining the beautiful window light and my sister’s strong profile, I wanted to capture the strength of surviving and looking beyond the treatment.
I want to create a body of work photographing women undertaking or finishing chemotherapy, wearing a variety of headwear, scarves, hats, wigs etc. then photograph them in the style of Italian Renaissance Portraits, where the women in these paintings are beautiful and elegant in their head wear and hair styles. This is the first image in the project and I am in the process of finding other people willing to be photographed.
When I collect enough portraits, the work will eventually be made into a book and the proceeds of the book will go to cancer charities.
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- Photography MA
- Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)
- Photography BA (Hons)
- Selected for ESPY Photography Awards Exhibition: Elysium Gallery, Swansea. 7th – 29th March 2014
- Photographer’s Profile invite: Lens Culture 2014
- Altrincham Arts Festival, October 2013
- Source Magazine, MA Online Showcase, 2012
- Book Showcase Brighton Biennale, August 2012
- MA Show. Manchester Metropolitan University. 29th September – 6th October 2011
- MMU Masters Showcase, 52 Princess street, Manchester 17th July 2010
- Eye to Eye, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. 22nd July - 24th July 2010
- Resulting in the publication of 'Eye to Eye' Book in collaboration with The Open Eye Gallery, September 2011
- 50x50 by Slaughter House Studios, Holden Gallery Café, Manchester Met Uni. 25th November 2010
- MMU Masters Showcase. Hotspur Press, Manchester. 14th - 18th October 2010
- Curated and contributed to Photography Exhibition 'Challenging Concepts (Aesthetics of the Body)' showcasing the work BA students, in Lahti Finland as part of the Aesthetics in Practice Conference.
The work continued at The Broadway Art centre Nottingham. 1995
- Curated and participated in "Signals: Festival of Women Photographers", a group exhibition 'Girls on Film', Observatory Gallery, TNTU Nottingham, England, 1994
- Joint Exhibition: Jill Regan / Irena Siwiak: The Anatomy of Risc / Monuments of the Past, or Signposts to the Future? Observatory Gallery, TNTU Nottingham, England, 1994
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Cabin